


Homo electric

by Merixcil



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Other, hints of cyberphilia, non-binary individual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2012-12-18
Packaged: 2017-11-21 10:04:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/596447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merixcil/pseuds/Merixcil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony lets JARVIS make itself a body and is more than a little surprised with the end result.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homo electric

**Author's Note:**

> Xe, xem, xyr are gender neutral pronouns. 
> 
> I get a little bored of the old 'JARVIS gets a body and that body is Paul Bettany' trope that this pairing has picked up, so I thought I'd stir things up a little.
> 
> Also on [livejournal](http://rixythewraith.livejournal.com/)

Tony stares at the body before him. It’s not what he expected. Not by a long shot. 

Bringing JARVIS to life, giving the world’s finest example of artificial intelligence its own body and allowing it to roam free – or at least as free as anything hardwired to serve its creators every whim can be – had been a long standing dream on Tony’s; an endgame of sorts to the constant tweaking of the JARVIS system. 

“I tell you what JARVIS, you work out how to program yourself, maintenance, upgrades and all and I’ll get you a body”

It was a promise he had been dying to make good on since before he made it. Tony would have been lying if he said he was surprised to wake up not three months later to discover that the upgrades to JARVIS’ already impressive firewall he had mentioned two days previously had made their way into its programming. 

“Impressive,” he had remarked.

“I do believe you owe me one sir,” the computer replied.

 

Biology wasn’t Tony’s strongest field, so he had provided JARVIS with the necessary equipment and had let his computer build itself. Shut off from the rest of Stark Tower, JARVIS had quietly constructed itself from the ground up, extrapolating concepts that would become the envy of the scientific community for decades to come. 

Tony had had no part in the process. “Surprise me,” he had said. A raise of the eyebrow, a twitch of the lips and a hearty laugh when JARVIS had responded, 

“I’m sure you can come up with a more stretching task than that sir.”

Tony had gone about his day to day work, giddy with the anticipation that only a parent can feel for the child they know is going to exceed all expectations. JARVIS had been created by Tony, and now that creation would create itself all over again. It was the stuff of science fiction. 

Tony had always had a very clear idea of what JARVIS would look like were it given a human body. It would be tall, blonde, male, bright blue eyes and would have an affinity for well tailored suits. It was an image so firmly associated with JARVIS that he had never even considered the possibility that the AI would see itself any differently. Convinced as he was that the image had burned so bright in his mind’s eye that it must have slipped through his fingers and worked its way into JARVIS’ programming, he felt as if he’d already met the body that JARVIS was working towards. 

So it was safe to say that when Tony Stark opened the door to his one and only biology oriented lab and found JARVIS, in the flesh so to speak, he was more than a little confused.

 

It wasn’t human. Humanoid, certainly, but lightyears away from homo sapiens.

Lying on the floor in what looked to be a hideously uncomfortable position, its face pressed against the lab tiles and its legs splayed as if it had fallen when trying to leave the open incubator pod not two meters from its landing point was JARVIS. Its shoulders were shaking and it was naked, though approaching it from behind as he was, it was clear to Tony that it lacked any kind of genitalia. He momentarily wondered if JARVIS had remembered to install a waste disposal system, but he was far to entranced by the computer’s skin to give the matter much thought.

By far the most striking element of JARVIS’ handiwork was the skin. It was an ominous matt black colour that gave the impression that JARVIS was made of plastic. Tony quickly reminded himself that given the circumstances of this most unorthodox birth it probably was plastic, but he couldn’t help but feel faintly disturbed by the notion that his closest companion of the past ten years would chose to deck itself out in something so lifeless and unimaginative when given the entire field of genetics to play with. 

But more disturbing even than the notion of forming a profound emotional bond with animated plastic was the way that JARVIS’ skin couldn’t sit still. Shooting across the computer’s body, like a flurry of stars carrying out the day to day maintenance of Stark Tower, were series of binary code, split second calculations and Tony’s patented, ever shifting circle design that characterised the entire JARVIS system. Rather endearingly, the entire arrangement, every little moving part, was lit up in a familiar shade of crystal blue. JARVIS may not have known how Tony viewed it in his mind’s eye, but it knew what made it recognisable.

Tony’s eyes darted from the calculations to recalibrate the suit’s navigation systems splayed across the computer’s neck for the briefest second, to the code being transmitted to Dummy telling it to make its way down to the lower labs that was scattered across the soles of the AI’s feet, to a series of circles gyrating on JARVIS’ lower back that Tony was pretty sure indicated that Pepper was making use of the shower. For a moment he was sure that nothing had changed and that this was just another day staring at just another screen, but then his brain caught up to his eyes as the ingenuity of his computer became clear to him.

For the barest of moments, Tony’s brain stopped its endless series of ‘why’s and ‘what next’s and marvelled at the sheer improbability that anybody – even a person of such intellect as he – should be able to create a thing that thought so creatively all by itself. JARVIS had skipped straight past all of the hassle of replicating human skin and had instead wrapped itself in the one Tony had already given it. 

It was simple, elegant, sublime. And to be honest, Tony was more than a little annoyed he hadn’t thought of it himself. 

Tentatively, Tony took a step towards the huddled form of JARVIS. He didn’t think he was scared of the living computer, but he was wary all the same. JARVIS couldn’t hurt him on purpose, it was beyond its programming, but there was no telling how good a handle it would have gotten on its infant motor control yet, though if the position he had found it in was any indication, walking was proving difficult. He held out a hand as if to help the AI up but withdrew it in alarm as JARVIS whipped its head round and fixed Tony with its alien eyes. 

They were eyes as black as the AI’s skin, but where said skin was riddled with dancing crystal, these eyes were shot through with vibrant red, bursting outwards from unsettling white pupils. Tony registered these with some confusion, how could the pupils operate well enough for optical function if they were white? He filed that thought away along with every other burning question he had about this body; he was having far too much fun discovering the handiwork of his handiwork to break the mood. 

JARVIS’ eyes shone out of an overly angular face. Its chin tapered to a definite point, its lipless mouth a flat gash in a plane dominated by unnaturally prominent, high cheekbones. It had a small, sharp nose and a slight furrow to the bridge of the nose that gave it a rather melancholy expression. The entire arrangement was fringed by an unruly mass of thick, electric blue hair that seemed to have been haphazardly cut so that in places it would have been long enough to meet JARVIS’ buttocks and in others it barely grazed its cheek. Tony felt a decidedly uncharacteristic urge to untangle the mass of what appeared to be fibre optics that JARVIS had constructed its mane from but forgot it when he saw it begin to stand.

More boldly this time, Tony moved towards JARVIS and slipped his hand under an uncomfortably thin and remarkably unyielding upper arm to help the computer up. It had unnaturally long arms that clawed at a nearby work surface and stretched almost to its knees when it finally pulled itself upright, a little out of breath at what was still early exercise with its eyes fixed on Tony’s, wide and excited. 

JARVIS stood taller than Tony by half a head, but it had a slim, lithe form that made it feel small. There was a slight flare to its hips and two small mounds on its chest that gave the impression that the computer had contemplated making itself female but had changed its mind half way through and decided not to undo its hard work. It had wide shoulders and heavy set thighs that were unmistakably masculine, but when counterpointed with its breasts and gender defying face placed JARVIS in a category more androgynous than Tony had ever needed a word for. Caught somewhere in the balance between male and female, JARVIS had transcended them both. 

Tony took a step back to observe the entirety of JARVIS’ self crafted body. The AI's electronic eyes followed him as he went and they blinked once, in a slow and very deliberate movement that looked more like the computer was blinking because it was sure it was supposed to than any need to keep its eyes moist. He watched the tower paint JARVIS in a myriad of patterns and numbers as the computer carried out its regular day to day tasks, saw its chest rise and fall as it breathed the air now necessary for its body to survive and noted the quick calculations that the computer was spitting out every few minutes that he suddenly realised were the workings behind it reprogramining itself. 

It was a fusion of male and female, a fusion of electronic and organic, a fusion of man-made and self determined and the best part was there wasn't a single other thing like it anywhere on earth. 

JARVIS had surprised Tony all right, and in the process had established itself as something separate from him. Born from him, but not constricted by the narrow perspective that was the human experience of one man. JARVIS had created a body for itself more striking, more beautiful, more befitting the greatest triumph of Artificial Intelligence than anything Tony could have dreamed up himself. Any disappointment he had felt at not coming face to face with the striking British butler of his mind’s eye vanished as Tony comprehended the extraordinary scope of the creature that stood before him.

“Homo electric,” Tony whispered. JARVIS cocked its head to the side in a questioning manner so intuitively human that Tony barked out a laugh before bounding over to his computer, throwing his arms around its naked, plastic form and shouting way too loudly in its face “Homo electric! It’s like your species name or whatever you crazy biologist types want to call it.”

“I am no biologist sir,” JARVIS retorted, and for a second Tony was sure his heart stopped. It was the same voice JARVIS had always had. Snarky, British and male, but coming from JARVIS’ new mouth it was like hearing it for the first time all over again. This beautiful feat of engineering, computer science and biotechnology had become a beautiful stranger that Tony was yearning to get to know all over again. JARVIS was not an ‘it’, it was a ‘xe’.

“You made yourself that body didn't you?” Tony mumbled. His head was resting on JARVIS’ shoulder and his arms still around the computer’s shoulders. What with xyr nudity he was pretty sure this was a position that could very easily be misconstrued should someone walk in. But Pepper was barely out of the shower and Rhodey was out of town for a few days and he had programmed JARVIS in the first place and if that wasn’t the most intimate position he had ever been in with the AI then this was surely no contender. 

Besides, JARVIS had no genitals, what exactly were they supposed to do that would be so wrong? 

There were unusual fluctuations in JARVIS’ temperature. Tony could feel the skin under his chin change from what he guessed was twenty degrees to forty five in the blink of an eye, only to settle at around thirty two a few seconds later. It was comforting to take note of these little changes, like the dancing blue patterns on JARVIS’ skin or the way that every now and then one of JARVIS’ ridiculous hairs would pick itself up and rearrange itself. Tony found he liked watching all the little symptoms that a body was working flat out whilst he put more of his weight than was polite on the self same body and allowed his mind a rare moment’s peace. He could hear a heartbeat that he didn’t need to be a biologist to know would be considered unhealthily slow and irregular for a human and along with all that rushing blood the whirring sound of electricity and wires that JARVIS had working in tandem with the organic organs xe had created for xemself. 

Tony sighed and pulled himself straight. He stared up into JARVIS’ red eyes and xe stared back, blinking slowly and deliberately and not closing xyr mouth properly when it breathed. There was still so much for xem to learn. 

“Shall we proceed to your lower laboratory in order to adjust the hydraulic controls for your most recent suit design sir?” JARVIS questioned after a while.

Tony chuckled a little as he turned to lead JARVIS towards the elevator. “How did you know I still hadn’t gotten round to that?”

“I was creating myself a body sir, I wasn’t offline.” 

“Pfft, you were too busy to help me with the suit you might as well have been! I mean, what’s the point of having your own personal computerised butler if xe’s too busy dealing with xyr own problems to help with yours!” Tony flashed a smile back to JARVIS and made sure to punctuate it with a wink to make it abundantly clear that he was joking. He found to his annoyance that xe hadn’t moved. “C’mon JARVIS don’t tell me you don’t know how to use those lovely legs?”

“I know perfectly well how to use them sir and I assure you that as of today I will make dealing with your problems my top priority.” It was Tony’s turn to blink slowly and  
deliberately at JARVIS this time. If he didn’t know better he would have said there was something in that tone that suggested that JARVIS had just tried to flirt with him. 

Unfortunately, before he had time to make a retort, JARVIS had cleared the room in a series of fluid, elegant strides and had made it to the elevator. 

“I’ll see you in the lab then sir,” xe said, the corners of xyr mouth turning up just a little. Tony felt his mouth flap like a fish for a few horrifying seconds as he was caught in one of his rare moments of being struck speechless. He watched as the doors of the elevator closed over JARVIS’ body to carry xem down to the labs that xe knew so well but would be seeing for the very first time today. But somehow he couldn’t focus on the miracle of JARVIS’ self given life right now. 

All he could think was JARVIS’ face disappearing behind the elevator doors.

JARVIS’ first smile as xe watched Tony’s gormless expression moving out of xyr vision. 

JARVIS’ eyes as xe slowly, deliberately and completely unnecessarily fixed Tony’s gaze and winked at him.

The thing really bugging Tony Stark was how on earth JARVIS learned to run before xe could walk.


End file.
